Toe-ing the line

July 2, 2014

I have really lovely hardwood floors in my house. Very pretty unless you are a collie with mobility issues.

To help Milo navigate around the house we have the rubber bottomed mat super highway. Trimming the fuzzy in between spots of toes helps as well.

Last week this trimming ritual revealed that Milo had an injury to his right rear outside toe.  And that he had been licking it.  A lot.  I suspect that the culprit was the loading in/out of his wire crate in the car.  We've done some reconfiguring of crates so that Milo can have a super-sized crate to be more comfortable, but the angle of getting him in/out is a bit more challenging.   Milo loves to go along anywhere with the gang - even if it is just to hang out in the car.

Anyway, the toe was looking very sore and the nail bed looked infected so we went to the vet.  The nail was indeed infected and rubbing a sore into the soft tissue of the next toe making the area even more painful.

We were given two options in dealing with it.  The first was to remove the nail which would mean a lot of pain and bleeding.   (I didn't like that one.)

We chose the more conservative approach which is not without risk of needing to remove the nail anyway.
The vet cut away as much nail as possible right up to the quick and cleaned off the nail and surrounding area.  10 days of Cephalexin and several times daily nail/toe cleanings.  

I'm relieved to report that the wound area due to the rubbing has healed up nicely.  The nail itself seems better.   And Milo seems more comfortable.   Starting an antibiotic meant we needed to stop the herbs from Dr. Choi.

At the vet, we discussed the seemingly nebulous findings from the neurologist.  Since it was mentioned that we could try treating it as a disc issue my vet sent home a mild steroid in case we wanted to try it.  I contacted Dr. Choi to check on her thoughts and she thought it was worth a try.

We started the steroid last evening to see how he does with it over the weekend.